PC tech support: Apple shines, say our readers

Which computer company is tops in terms of free tech support? Don't expect it to be anyone on the Windows side of the computer world.

Our latest survey on computer tech support, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center and drawn from our readers' personal experiences with 10,000 desktop and laptop computers, finds that Apple owners have much to smile about. Apple's tech support was able to solve Mac problems more than 80 percent of the time, according to those surveyed who used Apple's support.

Overall, however, the news isn't stellar when it comes to using tech support to fix annoying computer problems. According to those surveyed, problems were solved for only about 60 percent of those who actually had to contact a manufacturer for help. What's more, many computer makers' free technical support policies end in a year or less. (One notable exception is, again, Apple. Free phone support runs out after 90 days, but you can get unlimited support at Apple stores—if you live near one.)

As such, salesmen will try to pitch an optional, extra-cost "extended" service plan. Our general advice is to skip such pricey extended service warranties. But if you absolutely need the hand-holding or know you'll travel everywhere with your laptop, you might want to consider one—especially since our latest report on extended service plans for computers (available to subscribers) finds that a few companies' extended plans do offer significantly better tech support compared to their limited free services.

ConsumerReports.org subscribers also have online access to more information, including which laptop tech support and desktop tech support scored among the lowest in our readers' satisfaction (Hint: It's a top-selling computer maker) and how to get free computer help.

RSA 2008: Only you can prevent cyber-attacks

Ira Winkler looks like a guy with a lot on his mind. And rightly so. After all, he helped orchestrate a hack of a power company, at the request of the company itself, which wanted to test its defenses. It took Winkler, who is president of the Internet Security Advisors Group, and his team just a day to break in. If he'd wanted to, he could potentially have turned out the lights on the power company's customers—or worse, since this company ran a nuclear reactor.

Obviously, the company's defenses did not hold up well. What was most striking was how easy it was for Winkler and his team to break in. One step in accomplishing the task involved tricking employees into clicking on an e-mail that downloaded malicious code onto their work computers.

"There is a major storm brewing that is receiving insufficient attention from the government," Winkler said.

RSA Conference: Assessing online threats

I'm attending the RSA Conference in San Francisco—billed as the "world's largest security conference and expo"—where security software maker Symantec today revealed a few of the latest online threats, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff offered a few insights into what the federal government is doing to protect U.S. cyberspace.

The biggest threat to your personal data, according to Symantec, comes from the loss of laptops, hard drives, and USB drives, which accounted for 57 percent of the data loss outlined in the company's latest Internet Security Threat Report, released today. In addition, 70 percent of the malicious code unleashed in the last six months of 2007 was meant to steal confidential information. Finally, the creation of malicious software is now outpacing the creation of "good" programs, said Steve Trilling, vice president of Symantec Research Labs.

All this stolen information ends up in an underground marketplace that works just like a legitimate economy, Trilling said. Stolen eBay accounts go for about $8, e-mail passwords for $30, credit cards for as little as 40 cents, and bank accounts for up to $1,000 or so, depending on how much money is in the account. Interestingly, the virtual world is one of the most lucrative. A stolen World of Warcraft account can be worth 100 times more than a credit card.

Announcing a new feature for the Electronics Blog

As our annual State of the Net survey has shown for the past several years, the insecurity of online consumers is a severe national problem that affects nearly everyone and costs American consumers billions of dollars annually.

Coverage of this important subject has become an integral part of our electronics content, both in print and online. While we will continue reporting on Internet threats of all types, and testing the key products and services that help you protect yourself online, this year we will begin to do even more.

Microsoft cuts prices on Vista

Price alert: Microsoft is dropping prices on certain versions of its Vista operating system, starting with the release of Service Pack 1 in mid-March.

The upgrade version of Vista Home Premium will drop from $159 to $129, although pricing for the full version will remain the same. The full version of Vista Ultimate will drop from $399 to $319, and the upgrade version goes from $259 to $219.

You can already get a better deal on Vista from Amazon.com, where the Home Premium upgrade is selling for $95 and the Ultimate upgrade for $195.

But that's only a good deal if you want Vista. There are plenty of XP users sticking to that older, tried-and-true operating system, and plenty of Vista users "downgrading" back to XP themselves.

—Donna Tapellini

Vista to XP: The world's most popular downgrade

One year after Microsoft Windows Vista hit the market, public response to it has been underwhelming. True, most buyers of new Windows-based home computers get Vista pre-installed by default; but that's not exactly the same as beating down the door for Vista's glitz.

Meanwhile, many techies, IT departments, and just plain home users are either holding off upgrading or actually converting back from Vista to XP, thereby introducing a backward-looking term into the forward-looking world of technology: downgrading. At the tech forums on Microsoft's Web site, for example, you'll find a hefty number of posts dedicated to doing just that.

With retail sales of XP now scheduled to end by June 30, a movement to save Windows XP has formed. At SaveXP.com, created by the IT publication Infoworld, more than 75,000 people (as of early February) have signed a petition to Microsoft demanding that Windows XP be kept available indefinitely.

Here are kinds of Vista gripes cited by people arguing to save XP:

Macworld 2008: Some software and audio odds and ends

Some MacWorld miscellany, beginning with four operating-system/software entries:

Improvements to MS Office. I said earlier in the week I'd say something about the new MS Office 2008. The features are more or less in parity with the Office 2007 product that's been out for a year, now. Entourage plays better with Exchange Server, to address concerns about corporate distribution, and I was assured by the lead developer for Word08 that the "Normal" file, a file that holds all of your custom stylesheets translates fully from older versions. The only other thing to note here is that with Office08, virtually every major Mac application suite has made the transition to Universal Binary code base and is Intel-native. That means there's no longer any need for Rosetta, the built-in code translator between G5 Mac processors and Intel Windows processors.

A new Windows on Mac option. Another interesting entry in the "virtualization" competition comes from Codeweavers, who were demoing their "Crossover" product. Crossover allows someone who wants to switch to Mac and still protect their Windows software investment to actually install and run their legacy Windows programs natively in OS X; no virtual disk image or Windows OS is required. The downside is that this capability has to be customized by Codeweavers for each legacy Windows application. Consequently, the company has concentrated on a limited list of only the most used Windows apps to date, like MS Office, Access, Visio, etc. (You'll find the list of supported apps at http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/.) The result is very fast and responsive. If you use those apps, this could be of real value.

MacWorld 2008: Will Macs Become Less Secure?

With Mac sales up, and many new users coming to the platform, will malware writers begin to seek fresh targets? I asked the chief technologists at security companies Intego and McAfee what they saw as the primary threats to the Mac platform, both today and looking ahead.

While both agreed that Mac OS X is solid when it comes to security, they also fear that malware attacks on the Mac are inevitable—it's just a matter of when.

According to George Heron, the chief scientist at McAfee, 35% of the malware currently threatening computer users has been discovered in the past two years. In 2002, there were about 100 new detections a week. By 2007, that number had skyrocketed to 2000-plus. That's probably because the profile of cyber-criminals has changed. It's not about impressing your fellow geeks with your virus-writing prowess anymore. Today, money rules in the cyber-underworld, with malware going after financial information, credit cards, and bank accounts. Large, well-organized, highly sophisticated hackers design spam and phishing scams on a massive scale, largely operating out of China, Brazil, Russia, and the Middle East, according to Heron. More Macs in the marketplace means a growing profit opportunity in a highly profitable industry that steals billions worldwide.

Intego's Jack Nahan told me that the biggest threats to Mac users going forward are phishing, trojans, and ID theft. The two most interesting and insidious to date have been a scam where the user is invited to download a supposedly friendly new piece of anti-virus shareware called "Macsweeper" (it installs a trojan), and a "screen scraper" app that comes off the Web and never resides locally. It just copies whatever is on the user's screen (including banking information) and returns it to the scammer.

For more information on how to protect your computer (Mac or PC) and your information while online, check out these free resources on ConsumerReports.org:

• Cyber-security Central
• Best ways to stay safe online
• Best security software

And if you subscribe to ConsumerReports.org, you'll have access to:

• CR's latest Ratings of security software suites
• CR's latest Ratings of antivirus software
• CR's latest Ratings of antispyware software
• CR's latest Ratings of antispam software

—Thomas A. Olson

Macworld 2008: Preview

Apple goes into Macworld Expo, the annual party, love fest, and religious revival for the Cult of Mac, which opened today in San Francisco, following a year that's had a few fizzles (Apple TV, the first release of OS X Leopard, 10.5), one big hit (the iPhone) and under-the-radar sales growth of 40% for Mac desktops and laptops. The one adjective that no longer describes Apple is "beleaguered."

While analysts don’t see the same kind of explosive growth for Apple this year, they still hope a few compelling new products and services will keep the company on a growth track.

I do believe Apple will deliver. My first clue was this week's pre-event announcement of a new MacPro tower and XServe, powered by 8-core Intel Xeon processors, offering 2.3 times the speed and raw horsepower as the dual, quad-core 3.0 Ghz machines being sold only a month ago. If they couldn't wait one week to announce this, it often indicates they have so many other things to show us, there simply wasn't room in the Keynote program to hold it all.

Below is a distillation of predictions, hopes, and wishes from the amassed Mac pundits and bloggers for Keynote 2008:

Movie rentals in iTunes—Fox and Disney are reported as already signed on and almost everybody wants the "One More Thing" to be—at long last—the entire Beatles collection, made available at the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). (If that happens, no one will be crying over the loss of Universal.)

Improvements to iPhone: A 16GB, 3G model, with no limits on cell service provider—we can certainly dream, can't we? Also rumored is an iPhone SDK (software development kit), which would mean that there would be a market for third-party software. We might even see a demo of 3rd-party apps—something developers were clamoring for most of last year.

Office 2008—slam-dunk #2, as Amazon is already taking pre-orders. I expect someone from Microsoft will make the official announcement during the Keynote. (I'll write more on Office later in the week, when I get to see it for real.)

Leopard 10.5.2—this is almost a slam-dunk, as the Developers Cut is already making the rounds. There are at least 75 fixes and feature additions in the works, and this would be a perfect time to announce their deployment.

New Cinema displays with touch-screen and built-in webcam—possibly 24-, 27- and 30-inch models, an upgrade that is long overdue.

Blu-ray drives in some Macs—a rumor that is growing some legs, now that Blu-Ray seems to be winning the format war, and there is going to be a growing need to handle HD content.

Ultraslim notebook/touch tablet—this is the biggest rumor to make the rounds, and highly likely: Apple fills out its laptop line with an ultra-thin notebook, running on flash memory instead of a hard drive, sporting a 12-13 inch touch screen, which could possibly fold over to become a tablet Mac.

Final Cut Studio update—not likely, but definitely overdue, considering the plethora of new digital camcorders that have hit the market

Apple TV "2.0"—look for a "reboot" of this product, with new features, more storage, and built-in compatibility with iTMS movie-rental.

If you are not attending this year, here is a link to sites offering live blogging of the Keynote (SFW). Stay tuned!

—Thomas A. Olson

Thomas Olson, the Publishing Systems Administrator for Consumer Reports' Editorial, Design, Production and Pre-Press groups, has been a Mac enthusiast since 1984.

 

CES 2008: Green gains, but only so far…

This year's Consumer Electronics Show proclaimed itself the world's first carbon-neutral trade event, proudly detailing how it required suppliers of everything from displays to disposable plates to choose environmentally benign options. This was also the greenest CES ever in terms of what participants were shown and invited to discuss.

But a greenfest it wasn't. At best, environmental issues rose from the near-invisibility of past shows to a scattered presence on the show floor, with the occasional green or brown sign carrying a corporate pledge or strategy. The conference program featured a day of modestly attended panel discussions on environmental issues, in the farthest reaches of the Las Vegas Convention Center's cavernous South Hall. A few other green-themed sessions dotted the calendar.

I attended as many of those events as I could and chatted afterwards with some of the panelists, who included manufacturers, mostly from big companies such as HP, Sony, and Panasonic, and regulators but not environmentalists (organizers say they tried without success to get environmental groups to participate).

Here are some of the promising developments I heard:

Energy Star designations will improve and expand. As we'll report more fully in a few weeks, when our annual TV feature-content posts to ConsumerReports.org, a flat-panel TV can easily consume $50 or more of power a year, possibly as much or more than your fridge. Many plasmas and LCD sets now bear Energy Star labels, but the current requirements reflect only power consumption in the standby mode—which is many times less than sets consume during the eight or so hours in which they're on in an average home. Energy Star's administrator, Katharine Kaplan, says a new TV standard will be finalized next month that reflects power when the set is on. She also said that standards would be similarly upgraded for printers and some other gear in 2008.

CES 2008: Life in the third dimension

Though it's a challenge to identify significant trends in the hardware at this year's CES, there's one that has been creeping up on us for a few years and could break through as the "next big thing"—if the industry gets it right. It's 3-D TV.

Digital TVs have gotten big, bright and sharp enough, by anyone's measure. But, though sales have been anything but flat, the picture on the screen still is. Movie and game producers would like to change that, and bring the enveloping visual experience you might have seen in a 3-D IMAX film into your living room.

Presented well, as in a few of the CES demonstrations we've watched, 3-D can be strikingly effective in drawing you closer to the action, adding realism and depth to scenes, especially ones portraying movement towards or away from the viewer. The degree of 3-D's enhancement to video is much like the move from monophonic sound to stereo was in the 1950's, at least in this viewer's experience.

The "magic" needed for 3-D is simply to have a slightly different view of the content presented to your left and right eyes, just as you see in real life. The technology is actually waiting, in some new TVs from big makers like Samsung and Mitsubishi, labeled "3D-Ready." These DLP or plasma TVs can show successive images fast enough to allow alternating right-eye and left-eye views while keeping the motion smooth. (LCD TVs are currently unable to switch images quickly enough for this kind of 3-D.)

Two more devices need to be added on to a 3D-Ready TV to complete the picture. First, you need special glasses that can rapidly switch each lens from clear to opaque in sync with the TV images. Second, you need a special DVD player—or game console, or PC adapter—that can feed the 3-D content to the TV. We expect to see the home-theater and gaming industries trickle out add-on systems—perhaps later this year—that will enable 3-D viewing.

Of course, you'll need to have the content itself. Some movies already "in the can," both animated ones like Polar Express and live-action ones like Beowulf, were produced in 3-D versions. These movies will probably be released on 3-D-enabled Blu-Ray discs.

And, most games produced today, for either computers or game consoles, are easily adapted for 3-D presentation. In fact, there are already several technologies being applied to computer displays that can present game graphics in 3-D. (Our upcoming tests of displays will include one of these.) Each of these technologies has its limitations, and it remains to be "seen" which ones prove to be practical and effective enough to catch on.

—Dean Gallea, Senior Program Leader

CES 2008: Bill Gates's Last Days at Work

William Gates III, founder of the world's largest software company, is quitting. Well, at least he's stepping out of his role as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. That was news over a year ago, as Gates looked forward to devoting more of his time to philanthropy.

Bill chose to make light of his impending "last day of work" at his final keynote presentation on Sunday, "press day" here at the CES. He showed a video of himself approaching a series of celebrities—from the music, cinema, TV and political world—pretending to be looking for work.

(Click on the image above to see Bill Gates with rock guitarist, Slash, during his CES speech. You can also watch Bill Gates' complete keynote speech at Microsoft's CES-related Web site, www.microsoft.com/ces. But you'll need "Silverlight," Microsoft's free Web-browser "plug-in" to access the online video. You'll find more information and the free Silverlight download at: www.microsoft.com/silverlight.)

In fact, Gates will continue to advise Microsoft on a number of projects started during the past few years, and his main message is that these projects represent the directions he believes consumer computing technology is heading.

Gates declared the "first digital decade" a success, and said there was nothing holding back the second digital decade. He outlined three technology trends that will drive the next ten years:

1. The ubiquity of the "high-definition experience": Gates sees sharp, bright video displays everywhere, not just on PCs and big-screen TV sets. Along with this will be improved ease of connection between devices, and 3-D presentation.


2. Hardware devices of all types will be "service-connected"—an obvious tie-in to Microsoft's "Live" online services. Gates described photographs moving from the digital camera onto the Internet seamlessly without the user having to deal with cables, or memory cards. Users will be able to easily share their own content with others, and organize their memories easily and effectively, accessing them from anywhere in the world. Devices will be smart—aware of the context—to optimize the way they work.


3. Powerful, "natural" user-interfaces will become common. The obvious tie-in here is Microsoft's "Surface," a table-like display with a touch-sensitive surface that can also recognize objects like cell phones. "Gestures"—like the two-finger zoom function on the iPhone's screen—will become familiar.

The remainder of Gates's dog-and-pony show showcased existing and new Microsoft technologies. One surprise was an agreement with NBC TV to produce online Olympic Games content for MSN through Microsoft’s "Silverlight" video-authoring platform.

There was also a demonstration of Ford Sync, an integrated, voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system that will roll out on nearly all Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles later this year. It will include a "911 Assist" feature to help quickly connect vehicle occupants to a 911 emergency operator following an air bag deployment.

As always, Microsoft continues to establish partnerships—with media companies to provide content for its products, and with hardware companies to extend the various Windows platforms. Whether any of these partnerships produces a "must have" product or service remains for you, the consumer, to decide.

—Dean Gallea, Senior Program Leader

Windows world goes all-in-one

Windows desktops are finally catching up to Macs, at least style-wise. HP, Sony, Dell, and Gateway have each introduced all-in-one systems that, like the iMac, wrap all the components into a monitor and eliminate as many wires as possible.

We recently took a first look at Dell's offering, the XPS One. (Click on the image at right for a closer look.) We also have the Gateway One in our labs, but are still in the process of testing that one. (Our latest Ratings of desktop computers, available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers, has more information about other models, including Apple's iMac.)

The Dell XPS One is a fully loaded system. Just because everything is squeezed into the monitor doesn’t mean you won't get most or all the advantages of a traditional tower system. The XPS One we tested included a dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, the latest WiFi connection, gigabit Ethernet, and a memory-card reader.

Keeping with the goal of eliminating plugs and wires, the keyboard and mouse are both wireless. Display quality on this system was very good. Its unique features include sensors that light up as you pass your hand over them, allowing you to control video and music playback, volume, and a few other functions.

Sound was only fair on this system, however, and it’s not a good choice for gamers. But if you want a computer that does away with clutter and can add some panache to your den, the Dell XPS One is definitely an option. We’ll have more details in a First Look early next week.

—Donna Tapellini

PCs: Best Black Friday Specials

The end of the year is the peak period for computer sales. Computer makers and dealers are jumpstarting this run by offering Black Friday and holiday discounts of hundreds of dollars each on select brand-name laptop and desktop PCs. In some cases, they're sweetening offers by throwing in a printer or digital camera.

• Most offers we found online and in flyers were accompanied by fine print stating that supplies were limited.
  
• Some listed the minimum number of discounted computers available in each local store. Don't expect to find those machines unless you're at the store when it opens.
  
• Not all offers were easily found at the company's site; some were promoted primarily through flyers.

Here are some outlets and select Black Friday specials:

Best Buy

eMachines desktop (Celeron 420), 1GB RAM, 160GB HD, 17-inch LCD, with a Canon all-in-one color printer, $199.97. Though we’ve never tested this particular model, its specs fit our criteria for a budget desktop, save for a relatively slow CPU.

Toshiba Satellite A135-S7403 15.4-inch laptop (Celeron M processor 530), 512MB RAM, 80GB HD, with Canon Pixma MP210 all-in-one photo printer, $229 We've recommended the A135 in the past, though Toshiba has since downgraded some of its specs. If you buy this version, we'd recommend upgrading its RAM.

Related information:

• Consumer Reports' Shopping Blog
• Hot HDTV deals for the Holidays
• Best Holiday deals for consumer electronics
• ConsumerReports.org: How to buy a computer
• Latest Ratings of desktop PCs (available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only)
• Latest Ratings of notebooks and laptops (available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only)
  

Wal-Mart Black Friday Ads Lack Last Year’s Fireworks

After weeks of speculation, Wal-Mart unveiled its Black Friday ad early this morning, and while it isn’t short on great buys—including, for example, a sub-$800 42-inch 1080p LCD and a sub-$1,400 50-inch 720p plasma—it seemed to lack the punch of last year’s promotion, which triggered severe price drops on a highly rated Panasonic 42-inch plasma HDTV.

This year, TV promotions are centered largely on models from Polaroid, a secondary brand whose models haven’t done particularly well in CR’s HDTV Ratings. For example, as part of a Friday-only, 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. doorbuster sale, Wal-Mart is offering a 42-inch 1080p Polaroid LCD TV for $798, while a 32-inch 720p Polaroid LCD TV is priced at $448. Other TV deals good only during that time include a $448 26-inch Polaroid LCD TV/DVD combo, and a $198 Emerson LCD TV.

For those looking a set from a major brand, Wal-Mart has a 50-inch Philips 720p plasma for $1,397, a $1,196 46-inch 720p LCD model from RCA, a 37-inch Sanyo LCD TV for $847, and a 32-inch Samsung LCD set for $796. While we don’t know the specific models, Samsung has consistently been one of the top-rated LCD brands, and Philips’ plasma models have typically been very good. LCD models from RCA and Sanyo haven’t done quite as well, although both have been solid performers that are often good values.

Other electronics sale items include:

• a $198 Panasonic DVD camcorder
• a $145 Magnavox DVD recorder
• a $30 Magnavox upconverting DVD player
• a $50 8-inch portable DVD player from an unspecified brand
• a $129 Garmin StreetPilot c330 portable GPS
• a $199 8.1-megapixel Nikon Coolpix S51 digital camera
• a $149 Polaroid 8-megapixel camera and 6-inch digital photo frame bundle
• a $50 8-inch digital photo frame from Venturer
• a $119 HP digital camera (5megapixel) and printer bundle
• a $398 Compaq Presario desktop PC with 1GB of memory and a 17-inch monitor
• and a choice of either a 15.4-inch AMD Turion-powered notebook PC or an Athlon-powered desktop PC with a 19-inch widescreen monitor—both from Dell—for $598.

In addition to these advertised specials, Wal-Mart says it will have “secret” in-store specials for both Friday and Saturday, which will be revealed on the walmart.com website on Thanksgiving day. The chain’s Black Friday specials are good only while supplies last, and a disclaimer mentions that brands could vary by store.

—James K. Willcox

Plasma TVs on Black Friday: How Low Can You Go?

A sneak preview of the Black Friday circulars from the largest electronics retailers shows that plasma TVs will once again be at the center of promotional activity this Thanksgiving weekend. And you won’t have to settle for a little-known off-brand to get a great deal: Leading the Black Friday charge are sub-$1,000 42-inch plasmas from Panasonic, consistently one of our top-rated brands.

Best Buy, for example, is offering Panasonic’s TH-42PE7U model at a doorbuster special price of only $900. We couldn’t find that model number within Panasonic’s model listings (apparently it’s a Black Friday special made especially for Best Buy), but Panasonic plasma TVs in our Ratings have been top-notch. If you venture to Circuit City for its six-hour special, you’ll see the TH-42PX75U—the smaller sibling of a CR Best Buy model—for $1,000.

If you want to buy either of these plasma sets, plan to be among the first in line when the stores open at 5:00 a.m. on Friday. Best Buy says it will have at least 15 sets per store, while Circuit only states that quantities are limited. Neither chain will offer rainchecks or substitutions on promotional items like these.

You won’t be disappointed if you’re looking for a bigger screen. At both Circuit City and Best Buy, the 50-inch Samsung HPT5044 plasma set will be $1,400, while a 50-inch Zenith (Z50P3) will be only $1,000. We haven’t tested this particular Samsung, but its plasma TVs have consistently done very well in our tests. We haven’t tested any Zenith plasmas.

LCD sets will be well-represented in the stores as well. Among the sale items you’ll find at Circuit City are the Sharp 46-inch LC-46D64U, a 720p set, for $1,300 and the 52-inch LC-52D64U with 1080p resolution for $2,200. (All TVs mentioned in this blog are 720p unless specified as 1080p.) Several LCD sets from Sharp, one of the biggest names in LCDs, have done very well in our recent Ratings, though others—especially older sets—have been middling.

[11.15.07 Update: As pointed out in the comments below, the Sharp LC-46D64U is a 1080p set.-Ed.]

Here are some additional HDTV deals at Circuit City for Black Friday:
• a 42-inch Sharp LCD (LC-42D43U, Sharp’s budget line) for $800
• a 32-inch Sharp LCD HDTV (LC-32SH12U) for $600
• a 40-inch Polaroid LCD (PLD 4011-TLXB) $700 (Polaroid has been a lower-rated brand in our tests)
• a 32-inch Element LCD TV, $400
• a 50-inch Samsung SlimDLP rear-projection HDTV (HL-T5075S), $800 (Samsung has been one of the better-rated rear-projection TV brands)
• a 65-inch Toshiba rear-projection DLP set for $1,500 (Toshiba has been a top-rated rear-projection brand in our tests)

In other deals, Circuit City will be offering a Samsung Blu-ray player (BDP-1400) for $378, a $180 JVC MiniDV camcorder, a $100 Mio portable GPS, and $300 Compaq Pentium notebook PC with 1GB of RAM and a free printer and router, and $230 Acer Pentium D desktop PC with a 17-inch LCD.

Here are some additional Black Friday HDTV deals being offered at Best Buy:

• a 47-inch Westinghouse 1080p LCD (TX-47F430S) for $1,300 (a CR-tested model, this one has very good overall picture quality)
• a 42-inch HP 1080p LCD (LC4276N) for $997 (a low-rated CR model)
• a 37-inch Dynex LCD for $630
• a 32-inch Philips LCD (32PFL5332D) for $600
• a 26-inch Magnavox LCD TV/DVD combo $480
• a 65-inch Mitsubishi 1080p DLP rear-projection HDTV (WD-65733) for $1,500 (we recently tested a step-up model, the WD-65734, which did very well).

Other electronics deals include:
• a $200 Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player (with 7 free movies)
• a $400 Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player (with 7 free movies)
• a $150 Panasonic MiniDV camcorder (PV-GS80)
• a $400 Sony notebook computer with a 15.3-inch screen, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive
• a $200 eMachines Celeron desktop PC with a 17-inch monitor, 1GB of RAM and a free a Canon all-in-one color printer
• a $400 Compaq Pentium desktop computer with a 17-inch widescreen monitor and Canon all-in-one color printer
• a $120 TomTom One LE GPS
• a $75 Samsung 1080p upconverting DVD player
• a $99 500-watt 5.1-channel Sony receiver
• a $200 300-watt Harmon Kardon 5.1-channel 1080p receiver

As always, we’ll continue looking out for the best deals on our best-rated HDTVs.

—James K. Willcox

Your computer may be more vulnerable than you think

Your new computer finally arrived. Everything’s up and running, and you feel safe as you surf the 'Net, because you know the system came loaded with a free trial for a well-known security package. But are you really protected?

There’s a good chance that you’re not. A new survey by security-software publisher McAfee and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), released on October 1 to launch National Cyber Security Awareness Month, turned up a notable disconnect between most users’ perception and the reality when it comes to their computer's security.

Consider this: 87 percent of those surveyed said they use antivirus software. But in fact, on 48 percent of the computers scanned as part of the survey, the antivirus software was not up to date. The respondents thought they were protected, but they were actually all too vulnerable because an antivirus that's not up to date is ineffective. The problem spans other types of security software, too. For example, while 81 percent of those surveyed had a firewall installed on their computer to block hackers, only 64 percent had activated it.

Related information:

• Consumer Reports Cyber-Security Center
• Best ways to stay safe online
• Best-rated online security software suites
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission's OnGuard Online Web site

Dell suit: What's a PC buyer to do?

When New York’s attorney general announced last week that he was filing suit against Dell for its tech-support practices, we shared details on Dell’s phone support from our annual tech-support survey. After hearing from several readers who reported many problems with Dell’s support (and several who said they were very satisfied), we thought it was important to provide even more information to help consumers make an informed buying decision. 

First, it’s worth re-emphasizing the point we make in our buying advice for PCs, and made in the blog entry, that Dell is not the only company with tech-support services that leave a lot to be desired. Check out our results on HP, Compaq, Gateway, Sony, eMachines, and Toshiba, all of which were equally or more unsatisfactory than Dell (available to subscribers). In addition, while Dell was worse than average for waiting on the phone, it was average when it came to actually solving the problem. Meanwhile, most other PC manufacturers were lower than average for solving problems. 

You should also keep in mind that reliability and performance are just as important as tech support when you’re making a purchase. We often recommend Dell computers because they exhibit very good performance pretty consistently. As for reliability, Dell is no better or worse than most of the other manufacturers. 

In the end, buying a PC is a balancing act. Consider performance, tech-support, reliability, design, and price, to come to the best decision possible. (For more detailed advice, see our Computers Decision Guide.) 

Finally, we note that New York is also taking aim at Dell’s promotional financing, citing deals such as “no interest until 2008” or “six-month interest-free financing.” The suit alleges that Dell “uses ultra-restrictive underwriting guidelines, under which the vast majority of consumers — even those with excellent credit histories — do not qualify for promotional financing.” The suit goes on to allege that once consumers are rejected, Dell fails to clearly let them know they’ve been rejected, and “mislead[s] them by calling these consumers’ accounts ‘Dell Preferred’ accounts.” 

We haven’t addressed eligibility problems with such promotions (though we’ll now look into them the next time we update our advice), nor have we specifically looked at Dell’s offers. But we have urged that if you accept a no-payment, no-interest offer, you should pay for the item before the term expires. Otherwise you could be charged very high interest rates starting from the date of purchase. 

— Donna Tapellini

The numbers behind the Dell lawsuit

As the big fish among computer manufacturers, Dell probably loomed large in the sights of New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, as he prepared to file suit against the company for misrepresenting its technical-support services, among other things. 

One focus of the suit is the poor response consumers allegedly get from Dell, particularly when they contact the company by phone. We took a look at the AG’s complaint to see how the allegations line up with our own recent survey results. Here are a few examples:

From the complaint: “Dell repeatedly places consumers who call Dell’s automated call center on hold for unreasonable lengths of time, or in some cases, simply abandons them altogether.” 

From our survey: 32% of the 6,300+ respondents to our survey who’d called Dell for tech support said they were on hold for an unreasonable amount of time. 

From the complaint: “After consumers have endured long wait times for a representative to come to the phone, [Dell representatives] repeatedly tell them that they have reached the wrong department  ... [and] repeatedly transfer consumers from one representative to the next.” 

From our survey: 30% said they were transferred to several different support staff.

From the complaint: “Although Dell’s automated telephone system often allows consumers to leave a message, [representatives] repeatedly fail to return consumers’ calls.”

From our survey: 21% struggled as they wove through the automated phone system. 

From the complaint: “Many consumers who attempt to contact the technical support department by e-mail similarly find their pleas for assistance ignored.”

From our survey: Although only 9% of our survey respondents who e-mailed Dell said the company never got back to them, close to half (47%) said the reply they did receive was not helpful.

Of course, Dell is not the only company whose tech-support drives consumers crazy. While these statistics represent Dell tech support, our survey found Dell’s support was similar to that of most other PC companies. In fact, Compaq desktops, and Compaq and HP laptops, had significantly lower satisfaction scores than Dell in our ratings.

The AG’s complaint concludes that “exasperated consumers, fed up with the endless runaround and ineffective technical support, resort to paying a third party to fix their equipment . . . even though it is covered by a Dell warranty or service contract.”

We could have told them that. Only 64% of survey respondents said Dell fixed their computers, while 90% said third-party tech support successfully solved problems with their Dell computers. 

— Donna Tapellini

XP’s Encore

XP loyalists take heart -- if you’ve been hesitant about buying a new system because you don’t want Vista, take a look at Dell’s Web site. The company is offering four Inspiron and two Dimension models with XP as an optional operating system. Gamers or others looking for high-end systems will find XP on a few XPS systems.

Since the launch of Vista, several manufacturers did keep a few XP PCs on hand, but they were oriented toward business users. Dell is the first we’ve seen with consumer systems. The XP-based Inspirons are the 1405, 1501, 1505, and 1705; the Dimensions are the E520 and E521; the XPS systems are the 710s. You can choose from XP Home and XP Pro for the Dimensions and Inspirons; the XPS 710s also let you purchase XP Media Center Edition.

You have to dig around to actually find the systems. From the Home & Home Office Notebook/Desktop shopping page, look for the logo on the right side of the page that asks, “Still looking for XP?”; or go to Dell’s Ideas in Action page, which is where Dell announced the program. It has links to the Inspiron and Dimension models.

The company says it made the decision based on extensive customer feedback. The lesson: If you want something, speak up. You just might be heard.

-- Donna Tapellini

How reliable is Vista?

Did you ever have the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with your PC? Vista’s Reliability Monitor can validate your intuition and help you diagnose your computer’s ills. Or, if your PC is in the pink, it will tell you that as well.

The Reliability Monitor tracks failures that occur over time, then ranks your system on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is best). A graph depicts the status of your system day-by-day. But you get more than numbers and a pretty picture: Daily listings of events like hardware and software failures paint a more detailed picture of problems that may have affected your system’s operation at a particular time. The events tracked by Reliability Monitor are:

• Software (Un)Installs: Software installations and removals including operating system components, Windows updates, drivers, and applications.

• Application Failures: Application failures, including the termination of a non-responding application or an application that has stopped working.

• Hardware Failures: Disk and memory failures.

• Windows Failures: Operating system and boot failures.

• System Clock Changes: Significant changes to the system time are tracked in this category. (This appears only when a time change occurs.)

• Miscellaneous Failures: Failures that impact stability and do not fall under previous categories, including unexpected operating system shutdowns.

To view the Reliability Monitor, click the Start menu, then right-click on “Computer” and select “Manage.” In the Computer Management console, click on the arrow next to Reliability and Performance in the left pane, then on the arrow next to Monitoring Tools, and then on Reliability Monitor.

You’ll see your system’s daily score at the top right of the screen. Recent failures are weighted more heavily than past failures, so you’ll see improvement over time once a reliability issue has been resolved. Icons below the graph point you to instances that were problematic: Yellow triangles with an exclamation point indicate minor problems; an x inside a red circle represents major troubles. Vista updates the Reliability Monitor once a day as long as the system was turned on.

The Reliability Monitor is more than just a tool for confirming how things are going. If you’re porting older applications to a new computer, or running them for the first time on Vista, Reliability Monitor can show you what’s going right and wrong. It’s also useful for tracking down errors and troubleshooting problems. As a first step, check the category the problem occurred in from the list above. Or click on specific dates to see determine when problems began. For example, Reliability Monitor might report that errors in a software program started occurring only after your last update. If the Monitor shows that hardware memory errors began after you installed more memory, you can check to see whether the new memory is faulty.

A low reliability number doesn’t mean system failure is imminent. If you see a 1.29 on your Reliability Monitor—as we did on a home system—don’t panic. In our case, that low number began climbing back up, albeit slowly, as problems resolved. What caused the score to drop in the first place was the gradual installation of old applications onto the new system, as well as attempts to patch problems, use incompatible utilities, and install hardware that lacked Vista patches. In fact, that system’s score has risen back to 7.22.

As with any new operating system, you’ll probably encounter some rough spots with Vista, especially at first. Reliability Monitor can help you get through them and maintain your computer into the future.

--Richard Fisco, Senior Project Leader

Vista check: An OS tool confirms startup pains

As with using any new computer operating system, pioneering Microsoft's new Vista OS is an activity with high potential for failures, troubleshooting, and cussing. And unlike any other OS before it, Vista comes with a tool that allows you to monitor how well (or how poorly) Vista is working on your computer.

We've been running the tool, known as Vista Reliability Monitor, on a new desktop since the beginning of February. It uses a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best). According to Microsoft, the Monitor's score considers how well the system has handled time changes and software uninstalls. It also scores a full range of failures, including those by applications that stopped working and/or were terminated; the hard-disk or memory; and Vista itself.

The score for our PC, shown in the screen shot (click for a larger view) above, is currently 3.07 and has gone lower than that--as low as a dismal 1.29. The low score reflects the unfortunate reality of new operating systems, as well as the (admirably) tough way the Monitor scores Vista performance.

New OSs never work with every peripheral and piece of software right off the bat. Some components do make the transition from old OS to new seamlessly; we had no trouble with our PC's printer and external USB hard drive, for example. But many more don't work or play well with the new system, at least at first. If you load applications that aren't yet compatible with Vista, the Monitor takes note and responds by lowering the index score. Trying stubbornly to reload those applications just to be certain they don't work further degrades the score. The same applies to trying out supposed updates to the application that also don't work and using (obviously unsuccessfully) hardware that doesn't yet have working Vista drivers.

Utilities like disk defraggers, antivirus software, and firewalls are especially notorious for failure to work with new OSs. With Vista, Microsoft has built the utilities you'll likely need, except for antivirus, into the new OS, but in versions that are less full featured than the third-party versions, and you may want to pay to upgrade the Vista versions (which generally aren't available yet).

Consumers of a new OS, then, are to some degree trapped in a corporate technology tussle. Microsoft may say it's up to the third-party hardware and software makers to have all their applications, drivers and firmware updated for the new OS. The third parties may counter by saying the new OS should be able to run all the existing software and hardware with no updates necessary.

What does our test (and the above reality) mean if you're poised to go Vista? They add to the good reasons not to rush into using the new OS. If past OSs are a guide, the landscape will change for the better. More drivers and application fixes will invariably arrive through Vista's first year, culminating in the first service pack, probably in the second half of 2007. By then, the hardware and software manufacturers should have most if not all of their products Vista-compatible.

Already have Vista, or can't wait to buy a new PC until the bugs are worked out? You may then want to use Monitor to confirm (or challenge) your feeling that all is going well, or badly. I'll cover how to use the tool in another blog entry soon.

-- Richard Fisco, Senior Project Leader

A Vista PC for the rest of the house

 

HP built its new all-in-one desktop, the TouchSmart IQ770 ($1,800), with your kitchen in mind, as well as your family room, dining room, bedroom ... you get the idea. Loaded with features that emphasize entertainment and family living, it’s also the first PC we've gotten with Windows Vista preinstalled.   

The TouchSmart has more connections than we've seen yet on a home computer, including six USB ports, two FireWire ports, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi (a, b, and g). For watching TV and listening to music, there's an analog A/V input, analog and digital surround sound out, analog and digital (HD) TV tuners, a remote control, and an FM radio tuner. 

At the heart of this PC is the HP SmartCenter, a convenient touch-screen user interface that borrows a lot of its look and feel from Windows Media Center, within which it runs. The main screen shows time, date, local weather, and a small slideshow of your pictures. From here, you can launch other functions, such as TV and music players, using just your finger on the 19-inch, 1440x900-pixel monitor. You can also jump to the normal Media Center interface, drop to the Windows desktop, or use a Web browser. 

There’s a family message center that uses electronic “sticky-notes” to communicate and remind. You can also record your voice or draw onto notes and attach them to calendar dates. There were a few rough edges; it was a bit slow to launch, and we couldn’t play a voice-note directly from the calendar, but the program could be useful. 

The TouchSmart’s Vista Home Premium OS runs in full Aero mode, transparent windows and all. You can operate this PC with your finger thanks to a screen mode that expands the size of buttons, icons, and control elements on the screen, even on normal Windows programs. The SmartCenter interface even lets you pop up a keyboard on the screen for one-letter-at-a-time text entry into notes, but the keys are arranged in alphabetical order rather than the traditional QWERTY layout. 

Though adequately sensitive to our fingers, the touch-screen was sometimes off target, and there wasn’t a way to recalibrate it, as far as we could find (though we're still looking), but we got used to the quirks. You can tilt the glossy screen up and down to fit underneath a cabinet. But you can't turn the screen to avoid glare, or rotate it to the left and right, an inconvenience if you want to watch TV while cooking on the stove. It proved fairly resistant to fingerprints, and could easily be wiped. 

The TouchSmart takes up a lot of countertop space, similar to a large microwave oven, measuring about 22 inches wide, 14 inches deep, and 18 inches high. You can store the wireless keyboard under the front panel (but not the wireless mouse), and there’s enough space behind the screen to fit a snapshot printer, with the prints coming out through a slot below the screen. 

TV pictures looked good, with a bit of the noise artifacts common to PC-based TV images. Through the Media Center features, you can record and store programs, and pause and rewind live TV. Speakers lacked bass but otherwise sounded good. Waking up the computer from sleep mode took only a few seconds, one of the improvements Vista provides over XP. 

The TouchSmart, as with most HP PCs we’ve tested recently, is loaded with promotional software from HP and its commercial partners. Fortunately, you can uninstall it and remove unwanted icons and links. HP supplies a 60-day antivirus subscription, and a number of content-creation and editing applications. But it’s not set up for home office work; you’ll need to install some productivity apps for that. 

To see how well it would handle a sophisticated PC game, we installed Quake 4. It was eminently playable, if not quite as smooth as the high-end gamer PCs we’ve tested. But the TouchSmart is a powerful PC, and seems to pack in a lot of features for the price. It runs on a Turion 64 X2 processor with 2 GB of RAM. Other specs include Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 512 MB graphics, a 300 GB hard drive, DVD-RW, memory card reader, microphone, wireless keyboard and mouse, and a bay for HP’s accessory Pocket Media Drive that can serve as a backup drive. 

As far as using it in the kitchen, we just wonder how long the keyboard will last before crumbs start getting embedded under the keys! 

— Dean Gallea

Intel's new chips a reprieve for Moore’s Law, but what about Windows users?

Intel’s announcement on January 27 of the “biggest change to computer chips in 40 years” promises that Moore’s Law, which says that computing power doubles every 18 months, will continue for years to come. That’s good news for Intel, computer makers, and, in some respects, consumers. Tomorrow’s computers, powered by 45-nanometer transistors (devices so small that 2,000 can fit on the head of a pin), will be even better at displaying YouTube videos, rendering digital photos, converting music into mp3 format, and the like. Smaller computers should also become more powerful and use less energy, thereby extending the battery life for whatever portable devices we use in 2012.

Still, it’s ironic that Intel’s announcement coincides with the release of Microsoft Windows Vista, the first new Windows version in five years. Since digital computers first arrived more than half a century ago, software capabilities have always lagged behind the hardware. Vista is a case in point: Its user interface is catchier than earlier Windows versions, though it is merely playing catch-up with Apple’s OS X. Vista is supposedly more secure than Windows XP, though makers of antivirus and antispyware software are producing Vista-compatible versions, suggesting that they expect to stay in business for the foreseeable future. Even Microsoft itself is selling a service, OneCare Live, to protect people from its own operating system’s expected flaws. And recent news suggests that the spam epidemic, far from waning, is on the rise again, even though technological solutions exist that could put a big dent in spam.

Truth is, the requirements for the proper care and feeding of Windows computers — from keeping the computer in tune to keeping intruders out— are way beyond the interest level and free time of most non-technophiles. Equipping computers with even more powerful, compact, and efficient processors provides sufficient horsepower for changing that. But a far better experience for computer users won’t come to pass unless, and until, Microsoft becomes far more aggressive about improving computing for the majority of consumers.

— Jeffrey Fox

Podcast: A brave new year for electronics?

No doubt about it. The CES and MacWorld trade shows generated a lot of buzz. In this edition of the Consumer Reports Electronics Podcast, our editors and experts analyze the big news from both shows and how these announcements will shape the products in consumer electronics and computers we'll see this year.

Here's a rundown of this 25-minute-long podcast, with links relevant to the topics discussed:

1. A brief introduction
2. At 2 minutes into the show, Paul Reynolds and Jim Willcox discuss HDTVs, including:
   Pricing
   Advanced display technologies such as SED, LED, and OLED
3. At 11 minutes 40 seconds into the show, Donna Tapellini, Dean Gallea and Tom Olson discuss Co